About

Mighty - Streaming Music Without Your Phone

$300,101

pledged of $250,000 goal

2,951

backers

$300K STRETCH GOAL ANNOUNCED - A New Color Option! More details below.

Mighty is the first and only device that takes your streaming music on-the-go without being connected to a smartphone. Lightweight, durable, and small enough to clip-on to any piece of clothing, it's the perfect device for your active life. Mighty comes equipped with Bluetooth and WiFi, is compatible with iPhones and Androids, and can play 48 hours of music without any internet connection. All for under $80.

Mighty was born from personal frustration with the current on-the-go music experience. Today, every option to stream music while exercising requires a bulky, fragile smartphone. And phones are only getting larger, more fragile, more expensive, and more battery hungry. This motivated us to create a simple product that provides users with a comfortable and seamless music+fitness experience, all without a phone.

The first version of Mighty will aim to integrate with Spotify only, but we plan on expanding our support to additional streaming music services in the near future. Integration with new music services will not require new hardware and can be done remotely through a software update.

If you’re a user of Spotify and have been asking yourself “why doesn’t this exist?!?”, please help us make Mighty a reality. Say goodbye to your iPod Shuffle, leave your smartphone at home, and Be Mighty!

Every current option for streaming Spotify music on-the-go requires a smartphone. That makes no sense to us. Smartphones are heavy, hard to carry during exercise, have a short battery life, come with expensive data plans, and have fragile and expensive screens. Studies have shown that 24% of iPhone users have a cracked screen, many of which undoubtedly were broken during exercise. In addition, 25% of all smartphone owners in the US incur data overage charges and streaming music is the number one culprit. To make it even worse, streaming services are documented as the most battery hungry apps in the world and can quickly drain your battery in just a few hours. Save your smartphone data, memory, battery, and screens - Mighty is the solution. (Sources: 1, 2)

The iPod Shuffle is an alternative that provides a comfortable music+fitness experience, but it can’t play any streaming music (streaming music services do not work with the iPod Shuffle or Nano). Mighty is the first device ever to play Spotify music on-the-go without any need for a smartphone.

Here are more details on why Mighty beats the competition:

$300K STRETCH GOAL: A New Color Option!

If we hit our stretch goal, we'll add a second color option! Tell us your favorite color in the comments of Update #8 - we want your feedback!

What Other's Are Saying About Mighty:

"Music is crucial for a good workout, but toting around your fragile smartphone the entire time is annoying -- which is why Mighty Audio is such a game-changer."- Thrillist

LAUNCH, SYNC & GO in three easy steps. No cords and no computer required.

1. Open Mobile App
- Pair Mighty to your phone

2. Sync Your Music
- Using familiar Spotify interface

3. Get Moving - For the first time ever, leave your phone and go

When you get back to your phone, you can easily sync new music to Mighty with a few clicks. Just open the app and the home screen will show you all of your synced playlists. Click the 'Manage My Music' button to add and remove playlists.

Powered by Android: Android is the perfect foundation for Mighty because it natively runs the Spotify and other popular music streaming applications, the same apps that are installed on millions of iPhones and Androids. This means stable integrations and real-time access to all of the new features that are released by the streaming music services. It also means that music is synced to Mighty the same way that it’s downloaded to a smartphone. There’s zero learning curve.

Your smartphone is a remote control: Mighty doesn’t have a screen like other Android devices, so we built software that allows you to control Mighty using your smartphone as a Bluetooth remote control. Simply launch the Mighty mobile app, login to your Premium account, and make your playlists available for offline play using the familiar 'Available Offline' button. Instead of downloading the selected playlists to your phone, the songs are stored directly on Mighty. Songs are transferred with WiFi, so the sync process is super quick. It only takes a few minutes to sync hundreds of songs to Mighty.

Once the sync is complete, put your phone down and take Mighty with you on-the-go. You won’t need your phone again until you want to change your playlist selections.

Controlled with physical buttons: Playing music on Mighty is easy and intuitive. To start playing a song, simply press the play button and Mighty will automatically launch the first song in your first synced playlist. Use the song forward/back buttons to scroll through all of the songs in that playlist. You can also shuffle songs within a playlist and will have the ability to toggle between straight playback and shuffle with the click of a button.

If you want to navigate to a different playlist, press the playlist selector button to scroll through all synced playlists. Each time you hit the playlist selector button, Mighty will dictate the name of the playlist to you through your headphones. You even have the ability to record playlist names yourself, so you’ll always know what playlist you’re selecting. (Note: this is very useful if you’re like us and give your playlists names like “Pu’s Pump Up Mix”).

Battery life: Mighty will be capable of at least five hours of continuous music playback when fully charged. Ultimately, the goal is to achieve 10+ hours of playback without increasing the size of the device. Even after the first batch of Mighty is shipped, we can continue to improve battery life remotely by updating our software. No new hardware will be required. Optimizing battery life is the #1 priority for our development team.

Partnerships: Mighty is intended to work with Spotify. While we've had discussions with Spotify about a potential partnership, we're not currently an official Spotify partner and Mighty has not been approved by Spotify.

For the time being, Mighty functions just like any other offline device that has the ability to store music. Your smartphone, for example, is defined by Spotify as an offline device. Terms of Use allow each Premium user to sync up to three offline devices with their account and each device can store up to 3,333 songs offline. Mighty is fully compliant with these terms. (Source)

PRODUCT SPECS

General:

1.5” square, 0.3” depth, 0.6 ounces

Sweat proof and water resistant

Full compatibility with iPhone 4S+ and Android version 4.4 (Kit Kat)

One year limited warranty

English language support

Premium/paid version of Spotify and most other streaming music services is required

Controls:

Play/pause, volume up/down, song forward/back

Shuffle mode/straight playback

Playlist selection with VoiceOver dictation

Power off/on, Bluetooth/WiFi off/on

Connectivity:

Dual Mode Bluetooth 4.0

WiFi Radio and 2.4GHZ Antenna

Memory:

4GB SDRAM Flash Hard Drive and 500MB DDR3 SDRAM

Sound:

3.5MM Stereo Audio Jack and Stereo Audio Codec

Power Management:

Lithium Battery (likely 250 mAh but could change during production)

At least 5 hours of continuous playback and 100 hours of standby time

Micro-USB Type B charger; charges in less than 45 minutes

For the techies, here is a behind the scenes proof of concept demo:

We’ve spent a lot of time studying about the market we are trying to serve, and we think it shows with our current solution. Ergonomics and usability were the most important aspects of the design, letting you keep your eyes on the scenery and not on a screen. Ever try to use that touchscreen with gloves on? Mighty doesn’t have this problem, the tactile buttons fall easily underneath your fingertips without looking. We also tried to keep Mighty as small and light as possible so that it can clip it to any article of clothing. Last but certainly not least, Mighty is tough. It’s sweat and drop resistant, just in case, because we’ve seen all those cracked smartphone screens.

We paid particular attention to people trying to use their phones while in motion. Switching a song while running can be an awkward experience - the fumbling and tripping that some of us encounter is never fun and occasionally dangerous. So we made the experience of switching songs and playlists very intuitive. As for the headphones, Mighty has a headphone jack for your favorite wired headphones. Additionally, you can pair Mighty with wireless Bluetooth headphones, giving you full cordless freedom.

Mighty was built by a passionate team with expertise in active living, tech, and music. We have decades of experience developing hardware, creating brands, establishing partnerships and launching businesses. Our team who has been through this before and we’re positive that we can successfully take Mighty from idea to final product.

Mighty was born from our personal frustrations with exercising with our smartphones. Every member of our team has cracked their phone screen while exercising. When we spoke to family and friends, we realized that this is a major pain point for a lot of people.

To take it a step further, we visited popular running trails in Los Angeles to ask runners why they run with their phone. Some people like staying connected at all times, but the majority only bring their phone so they can stream music. And many of them, at some point, had tossed their iPod Shuffles into a drawer, never to be used again. No one likes dealing with cords and computers and, honestly, who still downloads music?!? We truly wondered why this type of product didn’t already exist. So we decided that if nobody else was going to do it, we were going to give it a shot.

DEVELOPMENT TIMELINE

Nov ʻ16 - First batch of Mighty will ship

May ʻ16 - Working prototype will be finalized

Feb ʻ16 - Kickstarter campaign launched

Jan ʻ16 - Appearance model finalized

Dec ʻ15 - Proof of concept complete

Nov ʻ15 - Feasibility study complete

Oct ʻ15 - Product development begins

Aug ʻ15 - Mighty core team formed

May ʻ15 - Product requirements documentation begin

Apr ʻ15 - Product design begins

Dec ʻ14 - The idea of Mighty is born

As you can see, we’ve been working hard for over a year to bring Mighty to the world. We’ve developed a proof of concept and have proven that this technology works. We’re ready to push forward with prototyping and manufacturing, but we need your help to get there.

We’re looking to raise $250,000. We’ll use our campaign funding to initiate large scale manufacturing and get our first batch of Mighty devices delivered by November 2016. This is no easy task (see Risks & Challenges below), but we’re confident in our team, product, and technology. We promise to update our backers frequently and we will be fully transparent about our progress.

Music and fitness are joyful aspects of almost everyone’s life and our mission is for Mighty to be the bridge between those two activities. We plan on enhancing our product in the future and we may integrate with other music streaming services, but we're currently ultra-focused on solving this one problem in an elegant and simplistic way.

Here are a few of our basic rewards. We have multi-packs and combos as well - check them out on the right side of the page!

INVISIBLE MIGHTY IN AN INVISIBLE BOX - $5

Check it out:

A VOTE TO DECIDE THE SONG THAT MIGHTY HEAD OF OPERATIONS, ANTHONY PU, WILL PERFORM A DANCE VIDEO TO - $10

He’s actually pretty good:

EXCLUSIVE MIGHTY KICKSTARTER T-SHIRT - $25

We made these just for our supporters. Join us and Be Mighty!

MIGHTY (OUR PRIDE AND JOY!) - $79

Here’s what you’ll receive (Premium/paid version of Spotify and most other streaming music services is required):

Risks and challenges

We know how important it is for us fulfill our promise to you, our backers, and deliver Mighty on time.

We’ve dedicated the past year to building our proof of concept and sourcing our components from manufacturers. We’ve done everything that we can to prepare for manufacturing and we’re ready to go as soon as we hit our funding goal. That being said, we realize that the biggest risks for Mighty - like most hardware projects - are delivering our product on time while staying within our development budget. To that end, we see two primary challenges:

1. MANUFACTURING

We plan on delivering the first batch of Mighty devices in November, in time for the holiday shopping season. We’ve already established partnerships with manufacturers in Taiwan who have decades of experience with consumer electronics and are ready to begin mass production as soon as we give the green light. Our internal team and our manufacturing partners all feel confident that we can deliver Mighty in November, but it’s possible that unforeseen issues will arise and cause delays. The most common issues are component shortages, facility issues, lengthy certification process, and failed QA. To mitigate these risks, we have a dedicated resource on our team who meets regularly with our manufacturers to ensure that we stay on schedule. In addition, we plan flying to Taiwan to meet with our manufacturers in person and ensure that the manufacturing process meets our high bar.

2. DEVELOPMENT BUDGET

Perhaps the most complex aspect of hardware development is managing costs. Mighty is clean and easy to operate on the exterior, but on the interior there are more than 25 components working in harmony to ensure that you have your music on-the-go without interruption. In order to keep Mighty affordable, we must evaluate dozens of options for each component and negotiate per unit prices with dozens of manufacturers across the globe. This is a complex, time consuming, and at times frustrating process.

We’ve already made significant progress on component sourcing, but we cannot finish this process until our campaign has concluded and we know the exact number of units that we will be producing in our first batch. With this in mind, we’ve set a realistic funding goal that will allow us to produce enough units to achieve economies of scale and maintain profitability while delivering Mighty at the stated price point.

If any issues should arise, we will be fully transparent and will over communicate to all of our backers. We realize there have been instances where hardware projects have had serious delays - we have no intention on being one of those projects.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 10 or more
About US$ 10

MAKE PU DANCE

Mighty Head of Operations, Anthony Pu, will perform a dance video to a Spotify song to be chosen by our backers via voting. You get one vote (Pu says please not country). Details will be shared after the campaign.